by Orr, Wendy
‘Cool!’ said Sarah. ‘I’ve never been to the airport.’
They sang ‘We’re Going to the Zoo’ all the way in the car, because no one knew a song about going to the airport. Mona felt fizzy with wondering what the mystery parcel could be. She had no idea who it could be from.
Maybe Uncle Matthew’s forgotten he gave me the circus tickets for Christmas, and has sent me stilts, she decided as Grandpa parked outside the freight terminal. Her uncle had given her juggling balls last year, soft red-and-yellow ones filled with seed, like the ones he used to practise. Stilts wouldn’t fit into a letterbox. The parcel must be so long it was getting in people’s way.
The more she thought about stilts, the more she wanted them. She could learn to dance on them the way Uncle Matthew did, and maybe she’d join the circus too when she grew up.
‘I’ll let you have a go, too,’ she told Sarah.
‘A go of what? How do you know what it is?’ Sarah asked.
‘You’ll see. I’ve figured it out,’ said Mona.
‘Am I glad to see you!’ said the man in the freight terminal. ‘I didn’t know what I was going to do if you didn’t turn up.’ He disappeared to the back of the building.
Mona felt confused. The terminal was huge. Stilts couldn’t take up that much room! Her grandparents looked more and more worried.
The man came back carrying a cardboard box, and a cat carry-cage. In it, nestled in a blanket, was a tiny lion cub.
CHAPTER 5
he cub woke up and squawked. Mona knelt in front of its cage as it crawled out of its blankets, its milky eyes blinking.
‘The poor baby!’ Gran exclaimed.
‘What was Matthew thinking?’ said Grandpa.
Mona opened the door and picked up the cub. It nuzzled against her, sucking her fingers with its raspy tongue.
‘We’ll have to get it home and feed it before we can figure out what to do,’ said Gran. She took the blanket out of the cage and helped Mona wrap up the cub. ‘Now it’ll feel safe, and keep you safe from scratches!’
‘You’d never scratch me, would you?’ Mona whispered to the bundle’s furry head. She was sure she could hear a purr of an answer.
‘Is it really a lion?’ Sarah asked.
‘It’s really a lion,’ said Grandpa. He didn’t sound happy. ‘We’d better check the box in case there’s a tiger in there!’
But the cardboard box had three baby bottles, five tins of milk-formula powder, a bag of kitty litter – and a letter.
To my favourite niece!
I know how much you wanted to hold a lion cub, but I bet you never thought you’d be taking one home for Christmas!
The problem is that the lioness didn’t have enough milk for all the cubs. This little girl was the smallest so she never got enough. The lion-trainer was afraid she was going to die because it will be very hard to go on hand-rearing her while we’re travelling all over the country. I thought about Gran raising the little goat last year, and I knew she’d want to help you give this cub the same chance.
Love,
Uncle Matthew
Mona knew her grandparents were cross with Uncle Matthew, because they always said that no one should ever give someone else a pet without asking first. But all she could think was, I’ve got my very own lion!
‘Wow,’ Sarah said. ‘I never knew anyone else who got a lion for Christmas.’
‘Neither did I!’ said Grandpa, and began to laugh. After a moment Gran started, and then Sarah and Mona couldn’t stop.
‘What did you think it was going to be?’ Sarah asked, as they got into the car.
‘Stilts,’ said Mona, and that started everyone laughing again.
‘What are you going to call her?’ Sarah asked.
‘Kiki,’ said Mona. She didn’t have to think about it – the name had been waiting there since she was two years old and had played at being a kitty called Kiki.
And if I name this lion, she thought, she’ll belong to me – because she had never wanted anything as badly as she wanted to keep this tiny, helpless cub.
Her grandmother smiled and tickled the little lion under her chin. ‘Hello, Kiki!’
Sweet as honey, relief rushed through Mona’s body. It dissolved the tight worry-band around her chest until her whole body was as relaxed as the cub that was drifting off to sleep on her lap.
When they got home to Rainbow Street, Grandpa shut all the dogs outside so that nothing would disturb the cub’s first feed in her new home.
Mona didn’t want to let go of her for an instant. She carried her into the kitchen and sat cross-legged on the floor. Sarah slid down beside her, gently stroking Kiki’s velvety head while Gran mixed up the milk formula.
She poured it into a baby bottle and showed the girls how to test the temperature by dripping a few drops onto the inside of their wrists. ‘If it feels just a little bit warm, it’ll be the right temperature for a baby animal,’ she said.
Kiki was still sound asleep. Mona tickled her mouth with the bottle, and the tiny cub just wrinkled her nose and grunted. But when some of the warm milk dripped into her mouth, she finally began to suck.
When the bottle was empty Gran lifted Kiki off Mona’s lap and rubbed her back till they heard a baby-lion burp.
‘That feels better, doesn’t it?’ Gran murmured, carrying the cub over to the kitty-litter tray and helping her go to the toilet, which is what baby animals do after they’ve been fed.
Grandpa had already cut the cardboard box down to be a two-week-old lion-cub bed. Mona folded Kiki’s blanket to fit in the bottom and lifted her in. In a minute the cub was asleep again.
She slept through Sarah’s dad coming in to pick Sarah up and exclaiming three times, ‘You’ve got to be kidding!’ when he saw what was in the kitchen. She slept through the dogs being allowed in one by one to sniff the box, so they knew that the animal inside was a friend they mustn’t chase.
She slept through Gran pulling Mona onto her lap and saying, ‘We’ll all do our best for Kiki. But her mother stopped feeding her because she didn’t think she could keep her alive, and the lion-trainer let Matthew send her to us because he didn’t think he could either. It’s not going to be easy.’
‘You kept Heidi alive when no one else could,’ said Mona.
‘And I’ll do my best for Kiki,’ Gran promised.
‘But what’s best for Kiki will change as she gets older,’ Grandpa warned. ‘And I don’t know what your parents are going to say about a pet lion.’
Mona knew that he meant her parents would say no. But she was sure that once her parents met Kiki, they’d love her as much as she did.
CHAPTER 6
he first week that Kiki lived with the McNeils, she was sleepy and hungry. She needed a bottle every two hours, even at night, because she couldn’t drink very much at one time. But soon she started to grow. She drank more and didn’t need her bottle so often. She started crawling faster and further. Soon she could stand on wobbly legs, and started being able to see.
The baby bottle was nearly as big as the cub, but Kiki liked to lie back in Mona’s arms and help hold it between her paws. Her eyes closed dreamily, her tummy getting rounder and rounder as the bottle got emptier.
‘Greedy guts!’ Mona teased, feeling as full of love as Kiki was full of milk.
Sometimes, if they were sitting on the back steps, Heidi would rest her head on Mona’s knees, looking on as if she remembered being a tiny kid having her own bottle. When the cub was finished, and Mona put her down on the grass, the goat would nuzzle her gently.
Mona was glad that Kiki and Heidi were making friends. Having a lion cub for a pet was the best thing that had ever happened to her, but she knew a grown-up lion might eat a goat. ‘You wouldn’t do that, would you?’ she whispered in Kiki’s ear. ‘You’re my sweet baby lion. You’d never hurt your friends.’
Kiki’s raspy tongue licked her face with a promise.
Frieda and Vicky, the sausage dogs, lived mostly ins
ide the house. They sniffed Kiki hello every morning, and never snapped if she bumped into them, but when Mona was holding the cub they whined and poked their heads between her knees, their dark eyes shining jealously.
Gran didn’t think the dogs would hurt the helpless cub, but she never left them alone together, just in case.
By the time Kiki was four weeks old she was nearly as big as the sausage dogs. She could walk on all four legs, wobbling proudly across the floor instead of creeping on her belly. She followed the family around the house, calling them with a scratchy noise that sounded like a frog meowing.
Mona took her outside to play on the grass and see the other dogs. They usually ignored her, because she wasn’t old enough to play, but Heidi always stayed close by her side.
‘Heidi thinks she’s Kiki’s babysitter,’ Mona told Sarah.
It was true: the little nanny goat was determined to look after the lion cub.
Sarah came to see Kiki nearly every day. Sometimes she brought other friends, and then they brought their brothers and sisters and more friends. Finally Gran had to make a rule that only two children could come at a time.
‘Kiki’s still a baby,’ she explained. ‘She needs naps!’
Some visitors brought toys for Kiki: cat toys or special lion-cub toys they’d made themselves. That was useful, because as Kiki got older she wanted to play. The more she grew, the more she played, and the stronger she became, the rougher she played. None of her toys lasted for long.
When her teeth started growing, sharp and sore through her gums, she wanted to chew all the time. She couldn’t understand why it was okay to chew a rubber bone but not Grandpa’s best shoes.
‘No, Kiki, no!’ Mona said when she found her Barbie doll’s arm chewed off at the elbow. The lion meowed, her round ears twitching as Mona put the doll on the top of the bookcase.
Mona’s crossness melted. She knelt and rubbed noses with the cub. ‘I love you way more than a Barbie doll.’
Gran had looked after lots of baby animals, but never a lion. She didn’t know whether she should be feeding Kiki meat as well as milk, or what else they should be doing to look after her.
‘Why don’t we ask the zoo?’ said Grandpa.
‘NO!’ shouted Mona. ‘They might want to take her!’
‘We have to find out what’s best for Kiki,’ said Gran. ‘No matter what happens.’
So they went to see a veterinarian at the City Zoo. She gave them the milk formula that Kiki needed, and said that the cub wouldn’t be ready to start eating meat till she was about ten weeks old. She said to call right away if Kiki ever got sick.
But she also said that lions couldn’t live with people forever.
‘Because they’re not just big pussy-cats, they’re wild animals,’ Gran reminded Mona that night as the cub snuggled into the girl’s lap with her bedtime bottle.
‘Kiki’s different!’ Mona protested, burying her face in the lion’s soft fur. ‘She’d never be wild!’
Gran stroked Mona’s dark hair and didn’t answer.
CHAPTER 7
iki kept on growing. Her milky-blue eyes were turning golden brown. By the time she was six weeks old she was as big as a grown-up cat.
But she was still a baby. She slept all night in her box in the kitchen. When Mona picked her up in the morning, the cub was always sound asleep, warm and floppy.
‘Hello, Sleepyhead,’ Mona teased, rubbing her face against the lion’s. She carried her out to the litter tray in the garden. The cub did what she was supposed to, then yawned and stumbled back so sleepily that Mona laughed, and picked her up again.
‘Are you awake enough for breakfast?’ Mona asked.
Kiki smelled the milk and squawked excitedly. Her voice still sounded more like a frog than a lion. She grabbed for the bottle with both paws, patting it happily as she sucked. It didn’t take long to feed her now.
Buck the collie taught her to play chasey and wrestling games. Kiki liked that even more than ball games with Mona, because Buck let her climb all over him and somersault off his back.
Heidi played with them too, but sometimes she had to butt the dog and lion to remind them that she didn’t like wrestling.
Uncle Matthew phoned when Kiki was nearly seven weeks old. ‘How’s the cub?’ he asked.
‘She’s beautiful!’ exclaimed Mona.
‘Are you training her?’ he asked.
‘She always comes when she’s called,’ Mona said proudly.
‘She’ll be the best trained circus lioness ever!’ said Uncle Matthew.
For a second, Mona wondered if she’d heard him right.
‘Kiki is never going to be a circus lion!’ she cried. And Mona hung up on her favourite uncle. She remembered Kiki’s father sitting on his stool, roaring at the lion-trainer. That roar was inside her now, a red rage bursting to get out.
She scooped the cub into her arms, holding her as tight as she could. But Kiki wasn’t in a cuddling mood; she scrabbled to get down, and her back claws scratched Mona’s left arm as she jumped.
It was a big scratch, and it bled a lot. Mona felt so muddled – so hurt, angry, sad and afraid – that she burst out howling.
Her grandmother came running. Her face turned white when she saw the blood on Mona’s arm and T-shirt.
‘She didn’t mean to!’ Mona cried, trying to wipe her tears away and smearing blood all over her face instead.
‘I know. The problem is that she’s a lion and doesn’t know how strong she is.’ Gran cleaned the scratch with antiseptic before covering it up with a bandage. ‘What did Uncle Matthew have to say?’
‘He wants Kiki to go back to the circus when she’s big.’
‘No way,’ said Gran.
Mona stopped crying and breathed out, a long deep sigh of relief.
‘But he’s not completely wrong,’ said Gran. ‘You know you can’t take her home with you. And Kiki’s just shown us why she can’t live with us forever.’
CHAPTER 8
randpa had made Kiki a scratching post when she was a few weeks old so she could sharpen her claws on that instead of the couch. He covered it with a scrap of carpet, because that’s how cats like their scratching posts.
But Kiki was not a kitten, and her claws would grow bigger than any cat’s. She chewed and clawed the post when she couldn’t think of anything else to do, but she liked real wood better.
A few days after Uncle Matthew phoned, she chewed chunks out of one kitchen table leg. Gran thought it was funny. She was going to tell people that the table had been carved by a lion.
But that’s not what she told Kiki. ‘Naughty lion!’ said Gran. ‘Go outside till you can be good!’
Kiki stalked out to the garden and started scratching the bark of a big magnolia tree. Bark under her claws was even better than a polished table leg.
Suddenly she saw a possum in the branches above her. Kiki was much too young to hunt, even if she’d had a mother lion to teach her, but she knew she wanted to chase the possum.
She pulled herself up onto a low branch.
The possum was sound asleep.
The lion cub scratched and climbed higher. The possum woke up and stared. Kiki climbed to a higher branch.
The possum disappeared into the top of the tree. Kiki couldn’t see him but she pulled herself up onto the next branch anyway.
Gran had told Mona to wait before she followed Kiki out to the garden, because she wanted the cub to remember that she’d been naughty. It felt like a long three minutes before Mona could grab a ball and go out to play with her.
‘Kiki!’ she called, waiting for the cub to come rushing, rubbing her head against Mona’s knees with happy lion grunts.
Frieda and Vicky looked up from their afternoon nap in the sunny living room. Freckles and Buck came running from different snoozing spots in the garden, in case Mona was going to feed Kiki something delicious. Only Goldie, too deaf to hear, went on sleeping.
But Kiki was nowhere to be seen.
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br /> ‘KIKI!’ Mona shouted.
A growly meow came from the magnolia tree. Mona had never heard Kiki make exactly that sound before, but she knew it was a frightened noise. She looked up and saw Kiki lying on a high branch, with her legs dangling over either side.
Mona raced to the bottom of the tree. ‘How did you get up there?’
‘Meow!’ said Kiki.
Mona was pretty sure it was a Don’t ask how I got up here – just get me down! meow.
Mona started to climb. The magnolia tree was her favourite climbing tree, but she’d never gone as high as the branch where Kiki was now. It didn’t look strong enough to hold her.
She scrambled up to the branch below and caught her breath. Holding the trunk with one arm, she reached towards the cub. She could almost touch her – nearly, but not quite. ‘Come on, Kiki,’ Mona coaxed. ‘Just wiggle backwards. I’ll help you.’
‘Mona!’ Gran called. ‘Can’t you find Kiki?’
‘Up here!’ Mona shouted. ‘I can’t quite reach—’
The lion cub wriggled away from her, further along the branch.
‘Kiki, stop!’ Mona shouted, because now the thin end of the branch was sagging under the cub’s weight. Kiki couldn’t stop; she was slipping and sliding … and before Mona could say anything more, the cub was springing right off the thin whippy end of the branch. Straight into the neighbour’s backyard.
Mona slipped backwards down the trunk as fast as she could, tearing her bandage and skinning her hands and knees.
‘Are you all right?’ her grandmother called.
‘Kiki’s in the Hoovers’ yard!’ Mona panted, sucking the blood off her hand.
Gran sprinted to the back fence. The fence was tall, and Gran wasn’t, but she pulled herself up and over like an acrobat in Uncle Matthew’s circus. By the time Mona scrambled over behind her, her grandmother had already run through the garden and out the driveway.
The Hoovers were good neighbours. They probably wouldn’t mind a lion cub in their yard just this once. The problem was that they didn’t have a fence across the front of their garden. Kiki could run straight out of their yard and down the street. And frightened animals could run a long way.